38 Weather Trivia Questions and Answers
Weather trivia about storms, winds and clouds, the instruments and scales used to measure them, and some famous extremes of heat, cold and disaster. The science is school level, and the history runs from Benjamin Franklin's kite to Hurricane Katrina. Answers are printed under each question.
There are 38 questions on this page. They are free to use for quiz nights, classrooms and pub quizzes, and each one links to its own page.
Related lists: Space trivia questions, Ocean trivia questions, Chemistry trivia questions, Human Body trivia questions, Bird trivia questions.
1.Which instrument is used to measure atmospheric pressure?
Answer: Barometer
Open this question2.Which instrument is used to measure wind speed?
Answer: Anemometer
Open this question3.Which instrument is used to measure the humidity of the air?
Answer: Hygrometer
Open this question4.Which seventeenth-century Italian scientist is best known for inventing the barometer?
Answer: Evangelista Torricelli
Open this question5.The Fujita scale is used to rate the intensity of which kind of storm?
Answer: Tornadoes
Open this question6.Which scale is used to classify hurricanes by the strength of their sustained winds?
Answer: Saffir-Simpson scale
Open this question7.Which scale, devised in 1805 by an officer of the Royal Navy, relates wind speed to conditions observed at sea or on land?
Answer: Beaufort scale
Open this question8.What is a tropical cyclone called when it forms in the northwestern Pacific Ocean?
Answer: A typhoon
Open this question9.What name is given to the calm region at the center of a hurricane?
Answer: The eye
Open this question10.What is the name of the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere?
Answer: The troposphere
Open this question11.In which layer of the atmosphere is the ozone layer mainly found?
Answer: The stratosphere
Open this question12.Which English amateur meteorologist proposed in 1802 the system of Latin cloud names that is still used?
Answer: Luke Howard
Open this question13.On a weather map, what name is given to a line joining points of equal atmospheric pressure?
Answer: An isobar
Open this question14.On a weather map, what name is given to a line joining points of equal temperature?
Answer: An isotherm
Open this question15.What Spanish name is given to the warming phase of the sea-surface temperature cycle in the tropical Pacific, the opposite of La Niña?
Answer: El Niño
Open this question16.Which seasonal wind system brings heavy rains to South Asia?
Answer: The monsoon
Open this question17.On July 10, 1913, an air temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded at Furnace Creek in which California valley?
Answer: Death Valley
Open this question18.At which Soviet research station in Antarctica was a temperature of minus 89.2 degrees Celsius recorded on July 21, 1983?
Answer: Vostok Station
Open this question19.Which American proposed in 1752 the experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm to study lightning?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin
Open this question20.What is the name of the cold, strong wind that blows down the Rhone valley to the Mediterranean coast of France?
Answer: The Mistral
Open this question21.What is the name of the Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and can reach hurricane speeds in North Africa and southern Europe?
Answer: The Sirocco
Open this question22.The deflection of winds and ocean currents caused by the rotation of the Earth is named after which French scientist?
Answer: Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis
Open this question23.What name is given to the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated with water vapor?
Answer: The dew point
Open this question24.What is the name for the scientific study of the atmosphere and weather?
Answer: Meteorology
Open this question25.Which Texas city was struck in 1900 by the hurricane known as the Great Storm of 1900?
Answer: Galveston
Open this question26.The eruption of which Indonesian volcano in 1815 led to 1816 being called the "Year Without a Summer"?
Answer: Mount Tambora
Open this question27.In which Pennsylvania town does a groundhog named Phil give his weather forecast every February 2?
Answer: Punxsutawney
Open this question28.Anders Celsius, who gave his name to a temperature scale, was an astronomer from which country?
Answer: Sweden
Open this question29.At what temperature do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales show the same number?
Answer: Minus 40 degrees
Open this question30.Which hurricane struck the city of New Orleans in late August 2005?
Answer: Hurricane Katrina
Open this question31.What name was given to the period of severe dust storms that damaged the farms of the American prairies in the 1930s?
Answer: The Dust Bowl
Open this question32.What name is given to an intense dust storm generated by the strong winds of a thunderstorm's downdraft?
Answer: A haboob
Open this question33.What is the name for a rotating column of air over water, like a tornado at sea?
Answer: A waterspout
Open this question34.What kind of precipitation consists of balls or lumps of ice that fall from thunderstorms?
Answer: Hail
Open this question35.Which unit of speed is equal to one nautical mile per hour?
Answer: The knot
Open this question36.Which weather phenomenon is named after St. Erasmus of Formia, the patron saint of sailors?
Answer: St. Elmo's fire
Open this question37.What is the common name for the aurora borealis?
Answer: The northern lights
Open this question38.Who is credited with making the first successful mercury-in-glass thermometers?
Answer: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
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